


In the Darkness, Two Shadows

by klytaemnestra (klytae)



Series: Midgar Blues - A Collection of Shinra Noir [22]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020), Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:27:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26508973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klytae/pseuds/klytaemnestra
Summary: Tseng understands far better than anyone what it is to love a dying thing.
Relationships: Rufus Shinra/Tseng
Series: Midgar Blues - A Collection of Shinra Noir [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915873
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	In the Darkness, Two Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Song of Achilles. Set as an AC compliant divergence 'what if' in my ongoing arc of stories. Not officially part of the 'canon'.

The first time it happens, he's resting alone in the room he now shares with Tseng. A pain that takes the breath out of his lungs, and a wracking tremor that makes his body seize. When it's over, he sees the haunted devastation etched across Tseng's features, and accepts he'll need to find a means to hide this new affliction. Rufus has little formal training to withstand torture, but years of neglect have taught him how to minimize his own outward display toward pain, blunt nails dig into his palm as he forces a look of nonchalance when the sharp ache of Geostigma twinges beneath his skin.

And when that isn't enough, he quietly stands on unstable legs, tries to pretend how they aren't failing him, each day making the injuries he sustained in the blast more pronounced, and slips away into the shadows of his room, muffles the screams, sweeps away the leaking murky black tears that cloud his unseeing eye. The stigma is insidious in how it seems to target the places where he's been left most vulnerable, creeping along faded scars, the ghosts of prior injuries.

Reeve visits late one afternoon, hoping to discuss the future of the planet with the former President of Shinra. Instead he is met by Tseng, who offers him a look that is almost grim, and says very frankly, with all the professionalism of the Turk that he still chooses to be that the President is not well. And when Reeve presses for further information, Tseng turns away, sighs just the slightest, and tells him. ‘Geostigma. I’ve heard that’s what they’re calling it.’ Tuesti looks as if the wind has been knocked out of him in that moment, and utters his name once as Tseng regards him with dark eyes, as if knowing quite well his feelings toward Rufus.

‘How long?’

A few weeks, but Tseng knows that it’s been months. Rufus like a wounded animal, hiding his weakness, as if any sign of vulnerability will make him easy prey. And when Reeve leaves, shoulders slumped in defeat, Tseng understands far better than anyone what it is to love a dying thing.

He is dying. Rufus whispers it sometimes to the silence when he thinks Tseng isn’t around, looks at the marks creeping along his wrist, the dark splotches blossoming along his neck. And when he touches them he wonders if they are slowly choking the life out of him. He calls to Tseng one such night as he looks at his pale reflection in the mirror, and sighs softly when he raises a gloved hand to press against his throat. ‘Please.’

There is a hesitation there in Tseng’s touch, but when his hand closes tight Rufus moans and rests his head against Tseng’s. Warm fingers wrap around his cock, cupping and caressing as Tseng tightens his grip until Rufus is gasping for breath. And when he comes, Tseng holds him close, saying nothing, lips pressed against soft strands that seem strangely lighter these days, as if this wasting illness is leaching the colour from his eyes and hair and skin.

During the day, Rufus finds it is easier to pretend that things are not as they are, and on good days he tries his most to do whatever work he can, emails sent, blueprints and plans approved, some afternoon he sits alone drafting out his vision for a new and better world. But his strength is in short supply. Rude finds him slumped over, and quite possibly drooling on the drafts scattered across his desk, he lifts him as gingerly as possible, slight enough these days that even Reno would have no difficulty in moving him, and settles him against the sofa. When he wakes, Tseng is there, holding a mug of something he suspects is coffee, and as he tries to sit up, firm hands prop him against cushions. ‘I didn’t want to wake you, but it’s been hours.’

When Rufus reaches out to take the proffered mug, Tseng says his name and brushes his fingers along the scar at his wrist now stark against the Geostigma. Rufus sips the coffee, and shudders despite the warmth.

The first time Rufus collapses, legs buckling beneath him, he drags himself upright, and doesn't move for hours. It's merely an episode he tells himself. His Turks are away, even if Tseng leaves with a look that betrays his fears.

That night when they return, Rufus is sprawled across the floor in a tangle of white. It's Elena who finds him. He looks uncharacteristically scared.

'Don't tell him.'

It becomes their private secret for 2 days. But Rufus can only hide so much within the shared walls of the place they call home. And when he can’t raise himself up to join the others for dinner that night, the jig is up, and Tseng _knows_. His legs haven’t been the most stable since the attack, but most days he has found the will to manage, but that familiar dull numbing ache he once felt returns. Reeve’s words of how it would take time, patience, mean nothing when all time holds now is a ticking countdown. Each day grows closer to when Rufus knows he’ll quietly bid them all farewell in his own fashion, and slip away in a manner of his own design.

He awakes to muffled sobs that night. Tseng. The man never cried, even there in the wake of the end of the world, he'd never seen him shed a single tear. Not over Aerith.

There's the sound of a curse in Wutaian, the pounding of a fist against a wall, rage and sorrow. Rufus lies awake in bed and pretends to not hear it. And when Tseng emerges from the bathroom later, he hears the soft word, ‘Please.’

He slips into bed beside him, naked body pressed against soft pyjamas and sterile bandages. Rufus lets him hold him close, lying awake until he can hear the steady rhythm of his breath, and knows at least one of them has found sleep this night.

As the days wear on, Rufus accepts that he has both good days and bad. Though the good are increasingly rare, and aren’t very good either. He still finds the energy to summon the strength to stand on those days, and while he sees the way all eyes cautiously watch his movements, Tseng seems a bit more relieved. He smiles when he sees Rufus emerge late in the morning, offers to make him coffee, crepes, toast, poached eggs, whatever he’d like.

Rufus settles at the dining table, content to allow his lover to dote upon him. And as he watches Tseng being so entirely domestic, as if he isn’t a trained killer, he thinks of how very much in love he is, and how very much it will hurt when he is forced to push Tseng away for everyone’s sake. How he’s considered wandering off alone one afternoon while they’re all gone, to slip away and be lost to the planet.

Tseng brings him coffee, with just a little sugar and too much cream. It slips from his hand before he can raise the mug to his lips, and as it shatters against the tile floor in their modest kitchen, he feels his body seize with a pain. He’s on his feet a moment later, legs unstable as he makes a hasty retreat for the bedroom, even as Tseng calls after him in a tone that can only be described as panicked. A voice so uncommon, and hideous that Rufus wishes never to hear it again.

  
  


He staggers inside, and locks the door. He can't have Tseng see him like this. He draws in two steadying breaths before collapsing. The sound that tears itself from Rufus' throat is nearly inhuman. He wails, and clutches at his chest, the bandages at his arm, dark fluid leaking from tapered fingers.

Tseng is outside, calling for Rude to help. He knows he has only moments before the lock is picked. He tries to focus on breathing, to will the seizure to settle. 

Tseng is through the door, but he stops dead in his tracks, dark eyes staring down at Rufus crumpled there on the floor.

'I'm fine.' He might be smiling beneath the pain, some weak attempt at dispelling Tseng's concerns as he cradles him, gloved hands wiping away the stain of black rivulets mingling with tears. Tseng settles against him, and he feels the warm wetness of tears against his neck, when he finally speaks, his voice is rough from the screams. ‘I’m sorry.’ And when Tseng buries his face more tightly against him, he wishes Tseng did not feel that same love as he.

The first time he shrouds himself, Reno quips something about how he's cold.

Tseng sees and quietly walks away.

He's thinner now, the illness robbing him of whatever strength he has left, and with it his looks.

Rufus has always been vain. And as he drapes the white around himself, he offers. 'I'd rather no one see me this way.' As if it is the simplest of things, that if he hides the severity of his condition, perhaps no one else will notice.

He sits alone, and thinks of a time not so very long ago when he had been beautiful, and powerful. And how this is nothing less than he deserves. Paying for the sins of his father, the scars that Shinra has left on this planet.

When Tseng returns, he says nothing. He’s long stopped questioning the how and why of what decisions Rufus makes in regard to this. His condition is deteriorating, the deaths are mounting, and they all will have to accept that Rufus is on borrowed time. He barely touches Tseng these days, knows he tastes faintly off, like lingering decay, and he fears that even if Tseng were to touch him, he’d be in no condition to perform. Rufus always loved sex, had indulged in the act as often as their bodies and schedules allowed, and as he watches Tseng there in the waning afternoon shadows, he longs for him.

The hand he extends is devoid of the stigma, and when Tseng wraps gloves fingers around his forearm, he makes a hiss of pleasure. Tseng kneels before him hand gently tracing light patterns against the pale skin, along the purplish line of a vein, then back up to trace down slender fingers, past perfectly manicured nails, and then against a warm palm.

‘Take me to bed.’ He sighs from beneath his shroud, and when Tseng lifts him, he rests his head against his lapel and breathes in the subtle scent of sandalwood and myrrh, sliding his hands through the dark fall of hair at Tseng’s shoulder.

Tseng settles him against the bed, but when he leans in for a kiss, Rufus turns away.

‘Rufus?’

‘I want to touch you.’ He admits, there’s just the barest hint of a smile there at the statement. He wants to see Tseng, to run his hands along that firm torso, tracing each scar. And as Tseng strips off his clothing, jacket first, discarded in a drape of black, then shirt, his hands at his belt, Rufus settles back against the pillows. ‘Slower. Make me want it.’

Tseng does, slowly undoing his belt buckle, leather sliding through loops. Rufus smiles, thinking of how at one time Tseng might bind his hands to the bedpost with that same belt. He finally steps out of his trousers. Rufus swallows. Tseng’s already half hard, as turned on by this little private striptease as Rufus, who feels heat pooling between his legs. He beckons to him. ‘Come here.’ And when Tseng settles before him, Rufus smoothes his hand along his lover’s abdomen teasingly, fingertips fluttering upwards to the angry scar left by Sephiroth’s blade, up against the scar at Tseng’s shoulder, the knife wound he’d earned during his first kill.

‘You’ve always been the most beautiful man on the planet.’ Before Tseng can say anything, Rufus wraps his hand firmly around his cock. ‘With the most perfect cock.’ He loves it, the way it fit him so perfectly, the taste of it, the way each thrust of it could unmake him. Oh Shiva, how he misses it. He presses a kiss to the sharp of Tseng’s hipbone, and when he moves to take Tseng into his mouth, he feels a hand cupping his chin, brushing against his barely visible cheek. ‘You’re not possibly going to deny me this, Tseng.’ He smiles a little, thinking of a past encounter, his lover still so very young, and how very far they have come together. ‘Tseng.’ He repeats the name, then again. ‘Tseng of the Turks.’ And when his lips wrap around that cock, Tseng cannot contain the moan that escapes his lips, fingers sliding upward beneath the shroud to twist into Rufus’ hair as he begins to shallowly thrust. They have not touched one another in months with any type of sexual intimacy, and the sad jerk off sessions alone in the bathroom late at night aren’t _quite_ the same.

Rufus traces his tongue along the lower side, teasingly against the vein, before withdrawing to sweep it in a pass over the head, tasting the bitterness of precum, before taking Tseng’s cock back in until he’s brushing the back of his throat. He closes his eyes, relaxing, and when it slides deeper still he wishes that Tseng would hold him in place, and fuck his mouth until he’s choking on it. Instead he pulls back, laps at the head a few more times with his tongue before wrapping his hand around him once again. ‘The most beautiful cock.’ He repeats, and then his thoughts become wicked, intent on making this a memorable experience, fearing it may be one of their last. ‘Do you know what this does to me?’

Tseng does not answer.

‘The way you feel inside. It makes me never want any other cock but yours. Like it was made to fit me, to make me moan, and beg.’

‘Rufus.’

‘Do you like that? Do you want no one else inside me.’ He sighs then, his free hand reaching down to palm himself. He’s not hard, but the pressure there gives pleasure nonetheless. ‘You know I never let another man fuck me. Even when we weren’t together, when you weren’t there. All I wanted was you to be inside me, to cum inside me.’

Tseng swears, his own hand wrapping around Rufus’, guiding him to the desired pace. And Rufus knows he’s close, so very close. ‘I want to ride you so badly. Shiva, I want that so much.’

Rufus feels as Tseng shoves the shroud away from his eyes, revealing silvery blonde hair, and a bandaged eye, but no longer cares enough to protest, and Tseng, with a voice that is every bit the Turk Rufus had begged to fuck him years before, commands, ‘Open your mouth.’ He does, and stares up at Tseng with his one good eye who comes against his tongue in hot rivulets with a sound that’s nearly a shout, and as Tseng leans down to kiss him, Rufus shoves his tongue into his mouth.

Tseng kisses away whatever traces of his release are left before kissing Rufus again, for the first time in a long while he doesn’t think of how he surely tastes of Death, the tang of mako, and faint decay. They lay together, Rufus tracing his fingertips along Tseng’s naked form, and as he settles more comfortably against the bed, he murmurs a soft, ‘I think we might have a lead.’

The last time Rufus knows true pain, it comes in the form of an audio file. Shouting, screams. And it sends a lancing terrible ache through his entire being that no bout of Geostigma could compare. He remembers losing Tseng once. Losing him again is unbearable. He tries to stand, to tear himself from his illness and find Tseng and Elena himself. Instead he ends up a tangled heap of white on the living room floor, shaking with his rage and sorrow and grief.

Rude does his bandages that night, twining gauze along his arm and chest as Rufus sits in silence, staring off while Reno makes them all something strong to drink.

To have lost him twice. He pretends the tears are murky black, and when Rude says nothing, he hopes they are.

Most mourn the loss of a lover only once, but here in the darkness Rufus considers he's spent so much of his short life grieving privately over Tseng. Time has never been right, and now he grimly accepts it never will be.

He looks at the dark splotches maring his hand, the pale silvery scar at his wrist, and longs for his gloves. He exhales a breath, and accepts he's longing for Tseng.

_Fin_


End file.
